Discussion of original performance conventions of Bach's sacred works -
cantatas, Passions, masses - by practising musician and director of
Taverner choir.
What type of choir did Bach have in mind as he created his cantatas,
Passions and Masses? How many singers were at his disposal in Leipzig,
and in what ways did he deploy them in his own music?
Seeking to understand the verymedium of Bach's incomparable choral
output, Andrew Parrott investigates a wide range of sources: Bach's own
writings, and the scores and parts he used in performance, but also a
variety of theoretical, pictorial and archival documents, together with
the musical testimony of the composer's forerunners and
contemporaries.
Many of the findings shed a surprising, even disturbing, light on
conventions we have long taken for granted. A whole world away from,
say, the typical oratorio choir of Handel's London with which we are
reasonably familiar, the essential Bach choir was in fact an expert
vocal quartet (or quintet), whose members were also responsible for all
solos and duets. (In a mere handful of Bach's works, this solo team was
selectively supported by a second rank of singers - also one per part -
whose contribution was all but optional).
Parrott shows that this use of aone-per-part choir was mainstream
practice in the Lutheran Germany of Bach's time: Bach chose to use
single voices not because a larger group was unavailable, but because
they were the natural vehicle of elaborate concerted music.
As one of several valuable appendices, this book includes the text of
Joshua Rifkin's explosive 1981 lecture, never before published, which
first set out this line of thinking and launched a controversy that is
long overduefor resolution.
ANDREW PARROTT has made a close study of historical performing practices
in the music of six centuries, and for over twenty-five years he has
been putting research into practice with his own professional ensembles,
the Taverner Consort, Taverner Players and Taverner Choir.
